Category: Beasties

In hot water – 29 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It wasn’t just the water that was hot, the thermometer was reading nearly 20º just after 8.30am

Yesterday we had a problem with the water boiler that is our kettle. The switch that’s meant to release the lid wasn’t working and the lid wouldn’t open. After poking around inside the lid, it seemed that the spring that lifts the lid had broken. To fix it would mean disassembling the entire boiler. The only thing to do would be to get a new one.

After a bit of browsing, it appears that water boilers aren’t all that popular. We bought the original one about ten years ago, we think. We thought they would be ten a penny now, but it seems that only Breville sell them, at least in the UK. In Australia they really are ten a penny (or Australian cent 😉). However, we both really like the idea of a kettle that delivers just one cup of boiling water, so we ordered one from Currys in Coatbridge. That gave us the opportunity to spend some time walking in the woods of Drumpellier while we waited for the text to say that the Breville was ready to pick up.

It was a lovely day for a walk in the woods. Warm with just the hint of a breeze. Definitely shorts and tee shirt weather and that’s what we were both wearing. We walked a few of our well trodden paths and basically I forgot all about Currys until we were walking back to the ice cream van and from there to the car with an ice cream cone each. Then I noticed we’d been told we were good to go.

Picked up the box from Currys and then stopped at M&S in Coatbridge to get some stuff to make dinner tonight which was going to be either two small quiches or one large one. It turned out to be one large one and one small one. Salmon, Broccoli and Potatoes in the big one and Bacon, Cheese and Tomatoes in the small one. We’ll be eating them all week, probably. We stopped at Aldi on the way home, because Scamp had tasted Bramble and Raspberry Gin at the witches day yesterday and liked it. I got a bottle and also a few cans of beer, because, as Scamp said, it was a beer day.

Back home we plugged in the water boiler and filled it up, then rejected the first two litres, refilled it and Scamp had a coffee from it. Later I had a cup of tea and it was awful. Chemical, or maybe more correctly, plastic tasting. I washed the reservoir out a few times and the taste partly disappeared. I hope it’s still gone tomorrow or Currys will be getting their Breville back.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the macro lens on the Sony. Took about 80 photos of beasties, half of which were rejected in the first cull. Then a few more littered the cutting room floor after a second look. PoD went to a Common Blue butterfly. You may wonder where the ’Blue’ comes from. It’s only when it opens its wings you see that the inside surfaces are a beautiful blue. You might notice that it’s dicing with death because there are quite a few spider webs spun between the flowers. Oh yes, and I got a bonus greenfly too.

When I returned we assembled the two quiches and while they were baking in the oven we headed out to the garden and had a glass of the Bramble and Raspberry Gin. It tasted to me like an alcoholic mixture of Vimto and Ribena. That’s the closest I can make it. Quite refreshing on a hot day like today, but as this is a weekday, only one glass was allowed.

That was about it for today. Hopefully the One Cup water boiler will settle down and the taste of plastic tea will be but a bad memory.

Tomorrow, Scamp is booked for a walk with Veronica and I may take the bike out.

 

Off the leash – 28 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off the leash today, off to a witches meeting. That left me with a day to fill and what a day it was shaping up to be.  It was going to be a scorcher.

I didn’t even have to drive her to Denny, she had a lift already arranged with Jeanette. After she left, I got the Dewdrop down from its winter pasture in the front room and after a bit of a struggle, got the tyres pumped up. A quick spray of WD40 on the chain and we were good to go, and we would have gone, but first I wanted a photo or two, so it was off to St Mo’s with the macro lens on the Sony.

The warmth in the last few days has brought on a hatch of lots of insects, but so far, no dragonflies. We still seem to be running a few weeks behind last year’s numbers. There’s nothing we can do about it, it’s just a case of making the best of the opportunities that are available. Available today were Damselflies, Soldier Beetles, Lacewings and a Grasshopper. As well as the insects there was an interesting branch of dried leaves to photograph. Yes, I can see the rolling of the eyes. Let’s just say it’s a photogs thing. The Grasshopper, because it’s such an unusual insect to find in St Mo’s, won PoD. The rest of the menagerie, and the branch are available to peruse on Flickr.

I even managed to include a quick visit to the shops halfway through my photo safari and got the ingredients for a stir-fry which would make a change from pasta on a Monday. When I got home, there was the Dewdrop looking a bit sad because I’d been off playing in St Mo’s and it hadn’t had its run. The first run of the year! Possibly tomorrow. Because I didn’t know if Scamp was needing a run home from Denny, I settled myself with my audio book and a glass of apple juice in the garden and enjoyed the peace and quiet for an hour.

When Scamp arrived home we shared a bottle of Bitter & Twisted, one of my best favourite beers. She took over my garden seat and I started dinner. This stir-fry thing is great. No real skill needed. Chop up the protein (chicken) and fry it. Chuck in some veg and fry it. Chuck in some noodles and some of the sauce and heat it through. Bingo, almost instant dinner.

Beautiful sky tonight. It started off gold and gradually segued through hot orange into pink. It was much more complex than that with at least three different layers of cloud, all changing shapes and colours at different rates.

Tomorrow looks even hotter than today. More Shorts and Tee Shirts and maybe a drive somewhere.

Up Hill and Down Dale – 22 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It was a beautiful morning and we were off early to Chatelherault in Hamilton.

I usually take one camera with two or three lenses. Today I took two cameras and two lenses. That meant I didn’t have to change lenses out in the wild, windy, dusty woods. It sounded like a good plan.

We started off going over the Duke’s Bridge, then turned left. Then … They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are one thousand words:

Actually the walk started at the chequered flag, but I forgot to start the OS app when we left the car and we walked the route anti-clockwise.  Oops.

After a gentle, but constant climb we reached the first of the Down Dale stage, immediately followed by an Up Hill part. That was the first of many, but generally it was just a walk. We found some newts in a pond. I couldn’t see if they were of the Great Crested variety, but they were definitely newts. Found some damselflies there too. Found a mountain bike partly disassembled and lying in the trees just off the path. Thrown there in disgust it appeared. After an hour or so of walking we started the descent to the Avon Water and the Green Bridge. As I’m sure I’ve said before, the Green Bridge is not green. It’s just that silvery grey of weathered wood. The original bridge on that spot was made of steel and it was painted green. It was one of my mum’s favourite places to take us in the summer holidays, with a bag full of pieces and a vacuum flask of tea. Great days.

We stopped at the bridge to rest a while then crossed it knowing that this was the halfway point and one of the biggest ‘Up Hills’ was ahead of us. After walking on an elevated path through the trees, usually between two pools of water which today were bone dry, the path turned and started climbing in a series of awkwardly long steps. Up and up and up until we found the seat at the top, thankfully, vacant. Scamp had come prepared for this with a plastic tub of apple slices liberally doused with lemon juice. I had a bottle of water in my rucksack too. After we’d caught our breath, we vacated the seat to two ladies who had just finished the climb. They were as thankful as us for the rest.

I found the walk from the top of the steps to the Visitor Centre a bit boring compared with the outward leg, but Scamp wasn’t concerned. I usually hate golf courses, but I was glad to see one appearing on our right side, because that meant we were nearly at the Visitor Centre. When we got there, we had a coffee with an apple pie for Scamp and a scone for me. After that it was a case of changing boots for something more comfortable and driving home.

Back home we stopped off at M&S for beef burgers for me and some fruit for both of us. Back at the house we sat in the sun in the garden with a beer and a Pimms. I’ll let you guess who got what. Dinner was the remaining Trout fillet for Scamp and an M&S burger for me. Later we watched Bakeoff the Professionals while most of Scotland watched the Scotland team be ousted from the Euros.

PoD turned out to be landscape view through the trees to another group of trees on the horizon.

Tomorrow the weather looks a bit wet for a change and we’re looking for something less strenuous to fill our day.

Surveyed – 21 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

A phone call with Hazy and the lady with the cotton buds.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning, glad that she’s feeling a bit better. Heard all her news and we filled in the details of our visit to St Andrews the details that hadn’t been recorded in the blog, that is. Also found out the back story of the Merlin Sheldrake book.

Then it was time to finish playing catch-up with the blog. Photos processed and uploaded. Blog written, but the posting left to later because lunch was on the horizon.

After that the lady with the cotton buds appeared. A new lady who hadn’t been before. Unfortunately the sampling technique hadn’t changed and was just as uncomfortable as ever. I think we are both glad we made the decision not to go with Phase 2: The Blood Letting! Just too invasive. However, we were able to answer “Yes” to a couple of questions about having people in the house, and seemed to surprise her by saying the we’d been to a restaurant more than once in the last seven days. Come on, we may be careful, but we do like to get out too!

Now that the survey was finished for this month I celebrated by going for a walk in St Mo’s. Scamp didn’t want to go today, but agreed that she’d join me tomorrow if I was going out. There were a few flying subjects today. A damselfly and a couple of strange looking little flies. The damselfly won PoD. Still haven’t seen very many dragonflies.

It had been a warm day again with very little breeze, but the weather fairies are warning us that the temperature is set to drop a bit in the next few days. That won’t be as good for daytime activities, but for sleeping at night it will be much more comfortable. The last few nights have been just too warm. Also there is the chance of rain by the end of the week. I don’t mind that, as long as it remembers to turn off after a while.

Tomorrow we may go for that walk. Somewhere nice, perhaps.

Dad’s Day – 20 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

A lovely day for Father’s Day.

A fairly relaxed start to the day, waiting for the Zoom call at 1pm. Unfortunately I got a message from Hazy, who had organised the Zoom call, to say she wasn’t feeling well and would speak to me later in the week. That was a pity, but some things cannot be avoided.

I was having lamb neck fillet for dinner and it needed a bit of preparation. Crushed Rosemary, Pepper Corns, a Garlic Clove, some Thyme, a pinch of Salt and a drop or two of Olive Oil in a mortar and pestle. Then rubbed the mixture into the meat which was left to marinade in the fridge. With the messy stuff done I could concentrate on typing up more of the blogs from the last few days. Then I needed a walk, so I took the Sony and the macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s.

There wasn’t much sun in the afternoon and as a result not a lot of insect activity. I focused (no pun intended) on some tiny wee flies sitting on grass flowers and also on some umbellifers like wild carrot. The one that became PoD was the wee fly on the grass stem, mainly because it was Scamp’s favourite.

Back home Scamp was tidying up after her flowers! The massive flower heads of the peony roses in her latest bunch of cut flowers were casting all over the floor. Such beautiful flowers leaving such a beautiful carpet of white everywhere. They really should be more careful!

Soon it was time to start the dinner. Scamp was having Trout as her main and we were both sharing potatoes and cabbage. I used my fancy grill pan because the lamb had to be browned first on the hob and then cooked in the oven. Both meals turned out fine.

Dancing tonight started with a Rumba One then a jive version of the same thing. Next was the Foxtrot with its complicated (for me) step routines. We just don’t have enough space to complete the dance. Not enough length and not enough width in the living room. However, I think if we practise the new part of the routine we might be able to fit it in to the space we have available. A quick reprise of the Cha-Cha finished off the torture lesson for tonight.

Spoke to JIC later and complimented him on his strawberries. We might get two berries form our hanging baskets this year. Not a lot else happening down south, it seems.

Watched a F1 GP from Paul Ricard circuit in France that started with a mistake by Verstappen and ended with a tactical error by Mercedes. Between those events it was a pretty dull race, but an exciting finish by Verstappen was worth waiting for.

Tomorrow we’re getting our next four-weekly visit from the lady who offers us the chance to stick a cotton bud down our throat and up our nose. Oh what fun!

Back to life, back to reality – 18 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

The car was packed and we were driving back south.

We’d started the packing last night, so it was really just a case of tidying up the caravan. Loading all the bags, rucksacks and more bags, plus the pink fluffy plant into various places in the car and pointing it south after we’d done some more shopping at Morrisons which happened to be on our way home. I must admit it was Scamp who did most of the work. I took a phone call from Fred. Not the easiest of calls to take. I’ll leave it at that.

We chose a slightly more picturesque route home, compared to the one the sat nav had chosen for the run up to St Andrews. Basically, after the initial avoidance of Crail and Anstruther, we just hugged the coast and followed it down to Rosyth where we crossed the Queensferry Crossing which is the Third Forth Bridge and from there we followed the M8 until the M73 and then we were on home ground.

After lunch we drove to reluctantly give Annette her caravan keys back, thank her for the opportunity and convince her that we hadn’t left too much of a mess in the ‘van.

Scamp and I went for a walk later in the afternoon and got a picture of some beasties which turned out to be immature Shield Bugs. They just looked like an unruly crowd of teenagers having fun. I couldn’t get that impression out of my head. They made PoD.  We continued our walk to Condorrat and got two fish suppers to celebrate the end of the short holiday.

Thank you Annette for the chance to share your holiday home. We really enjoyed it. I’m not entirely sure we could make a case for owning one ourselves, but it was still great fun.

Tomorrow I intend to relax and try to work out the knots that have appeared in my right calf. Something to do with yesterday’s up hill and down dale walk along the Fife Coastal path. Scamp is intent on starting a week’s worth of washing!

Well, that was a hot one – 13 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

I don’t know how far up the tube the little cylinder of mercury got, but it was quite far.

Not as far, perhaps, as the others in the family who are further south than us. Temperatures there were close to 30º by all accounts. Thankfully we had a cooling breeze to keep us in a more temperate climate. That said, we were still pretty warm and with blue skies and occasional clouds, the world was looking quite good.

We did a bit of gardening maintenance in the afternoon and then we both went for a walk in St Mo’s, but there was little insect activity, probably on account of the strong breeze through which the dragonflies might navigate, but the poor little damselflies would find it a struggle. Scamp and I went one circuit together before she left to do some more gardening with the option of a seat in the sun later. I carried on for another round of the pond.

On that second trip round I did find a Common Blue damselfly sitting quite happily on the boardwalk warming itself in the sun. It was a bit skittish, so I took my time stalking it and grabbed a few shots before I heard heavy footsteps behind me as a young couple passed. That was enough to scare off my Common Blue. Strangely, the girl turned and looked at me as I apologised for almost blocking their path and I’m sure she was a former pupil. She was probably wondering what her old teacher was doing sprawled on the boardwalk. Possibly she would come to the wrong conclusion that I’d been consuming intoxicating liquor! That would come much later in the day.

The common blue was the best shot of the day although I did go further afield in search of something larger, but there were no dragons flying today.

I came home and found Scamp in the back garden, reading, so I made her a Pimms and had a can of lager for myself. I then spent a comfortable half an hour in the sun, listening to my next Audible choice which is book 10 in the Inspector McLean series by James Oswald. Then it was time to get dinner sorted.

Tonight, dinner was Crab and Chilli Linguini. I was being ultra-careful as crab is really quite expensive, but most of the hard work had been done for me because I was using dressed crab that had been in the freezer for a month or so and came from a company JIC had recommended. The dinner was good, but not great. My fault, or my recipe’s fault, certainly not the crab’s. Too dry was the general complaint from both of us. Maybe next time I’ll make a better job of it.

No dancing tonight. Not our fault, but problems with internet connection at the teachers’ end. After a couple of near things, it was declared a no-show and as nobody seemed to have a free evening this week, normal service will hopefully be resumed next Sunday. We did have our own practise in the living room as all the furniture had been organised for the class.

Spoke to JIC and heard about all the trials and tribulations of house hunting down south. They really are finding some strange houses and even stranger sellers. Also we learned that there are swimming pools for dogs down south. Isn’t that what ponds and lakes are for?

Annette is coming to visit tomorrow for lunch. Other than that, nothing planned.

A dull Saturday – 12 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not a day for doing much or going anywhere, although it did brighten up later.

Scamp did a bit of tidying up in the garden and moved some plants around to give them more sun and also to put them in places where they could be seen better. I deadheaded some of the aquilegia plants to, hopefully force them to produce more flowers. Scamp also cut the grass at the front and edged it I am now reminded!

We had the other half of yesterday’s quiche for lunch. I think I prefer it cold, while Scamp definitely prefers it hot. After lunch I took the camera for a walk in St Mo’s. Snapped a few damselflies, but because I hadn’t lifted the macro lens, none of them were acceptably in focus. I walked out behind St Mo’s school and disturbed a big dragonfly. It flew around for a while before almost crashing into me. It seemed to perch in a tree, but when I looked I couldn’t find it. PoD turned out to be a little fragile looking damselfly that seemed to be playing hide and seek with me hiding behind a stem. Every time I moved, it moved too. I took some photos of it and left it to its game.

When I cropped the damselfly photo in Lightroom later, it was really a small image. However, this new Lightroom has the ability to enlarge a photo to four times it original size without losing definition. That’s what I did. The process is called ‘Enhance’ and that’s what it does. It takes a fair bit of processing power to do it and the PoD took almost 30 seconds. The wait was worth it, because the quality is quite amazing.

We walked over to Condorrat tonight to pick up a Golden Bowl dinner we’d ordered. Two Chicken Chop Suey and two Fried Rice. Just as good as it always is. It’s great that some things don’t change in this world.

After dinner, Scamp and I watered the garden, just the front garden and just with watering cans. If the warm dry weather continues we may hose back and front gardens tomorrow night. We had a quick practise later for tomorrow’s class. The routines are a bit rough, but we have most of the steps in the right place.

No plans for tomorrow. We’ll see what the weather brings us.

 

A busy day – 7 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off to meet her sister. I was head gardener for a while.

Lots of things I could have been doing, but I chose to put my free time to good use and scrubbed out the bird bath then refilled it. My chilli plants have been desperate for more space and some real compost, not the floor sweepings B&Q seem to think they can foist off as ‘peat free’. What is this sudden panic to make everything peat free? Crofters up north have been digging it up, drying it out and burning it in their fireplaces for centuries. Suddenly they are virtually criminals because apparently that peat has been storing carbon and saving the planet. It seems strange to me that all these activists use the same terms like “locking away the carbon”. It’s as if this new jargon explains everything, when in actual fact it’s more like The King’s New Clothes. Everyone seems afraid to ask them what that means in Topsy and Tim language. How does it lock it away? Where does the peat put the carbon? I think it’s all smoke and mirrors, but probably not peat smoke. Anyway, I used some general purpose compost which may or may not have peat in it and the chillies are probably better off in it than in the B&Q floor sweepings. Rant over. After that I soaked the plants in the bird bath, muddying the water and undoing all the good work I’d done there.

Before I started the gardening I’d made a pizza dough and left it to prove in the warm living room. When Scamp came home I’d just finished rolling and stretching some of the dough to a rough circle and put it into the proving oven (the grill that had been preheated for about five minutes) to puff up. It was just a simple tomato base with extra chopped up fresh tomatoes and some grated mozzarella on top. Baked for about fifteen minutes at gas 6 – that was just a reminder for me. It was very successful.

Next Scamp wanted to wash her car, but couldn’t reach the roof, so I did that and then gave it all a bit of a soapy wash while Scamp scrubbed off the sticky sugary stuff that drips from the trees in late spring. Then I set up the hose for her to wash it all off and started on my car. It made sense to just get it all done at the same time. Thank you Bobby Flavell for the use of your outside tap again.

With the cars sparkling in the sun, Scamp decided to water the garden. Easier to use our own water for that, so I fixed up the hose and let her get on with it while I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot of movement, but one little Common Blue damselfly sat and watched me while I carefully dragged my camera out of the bag and took its picture a few times.

After dinner the Amazon man dropped off a parcel I’d ordered last night. It was a Samyang Lens Station. Basically the 18mm lens I use on the Sony camera is crap at focusing. However, Samyang will sell you a piece of kit that connects your lens through the computer to their website where you can download a new firmware file that will improve the focusing. It’s a neat scam and it certainly works! Thankfully, so did the lens afterwards, because I’d read horror stories on websites to the effect that the software could wreck your lens. Maybe it could, but it only improved mine. I’ll do a field test tomorrow just to make sure.

Finally wrote to my brother. The last email I sent him was in March! So much going on? Not really, just bad time management on my part. Must get better organised.

The last thing to do on a busy day was to have a quick dance practise just to make sure that the muscle memory was working properly. It was, after a false start!

No plans for tomorrow. We’re waiting to see what the weather will be like.

Wall to Wall sunshine – 6 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Long may it last, even if we do have to water the garden!

After lunch we went for a walk round St Mo’s pond and stood watching the damselflies. I managed to capture one or two of them, or it could be that I caught the same one once or twice. Who knows with damselflies, they all look the same, don’t they? Well maybe not, because occasionally you can spot slight differences in their wing structure, some also have defects that mark them as different from the rest, just like humans, I suspect. Anyway, I was using the Sony camera and the Sigma macro lens and I did manage to get a PoD.

From St Mo’s we went down to Broadwood Stadium to extend our walk and take in the exercise machines path, then back across the dam through the houses and the underpass before climbing the long steep hill to St Mo’s school and then home. Not a bad walk. Later I wanted to see if any dragonflies had appeared, so I went for a short walk over to the pond, but there was no sign of life and it was getting late in the afternoon, so I headed home, because tonight was a dance class and I didn’t want to be in a rush to get dinner made and get a quick practise in. I needn’t have worried, Scamp was on the ball and had my burger cooking while her scallops were waiting their turn to go in the other pan.

Dance class tonight started with Mambo Marina which is a fairly old sequence dance that we learned months ago, but of course I’d forgotten bits of it. A quick reprise from Scamp and I was good to go. The Foxtrot was going to be next and it was nowhere near as easy as the MM. Lots of little tricky bits to it and we couldn’t agree on the correct footwork, but Jane and Stewart soon ironed out our problems and it was plain sailing after that. Last part of tonight’s lesson was the Cha-Cha. It is such an energy sapping dance. Most of the moves are fine, but it’s that little cha-cha step that has to be done right to keep in the tempo of the dance, that’s the problem. However, we managed to get it completed without too much trouble. We sat in the garden to cool down after that with a couple of beers. It really was a beautiful night.

Spoke to JIC later and got the low down on house hunting in and around Cambridge, Simonne’s run today and how JIC’s ankle injury is doing. Gave him some sage advice from his gran on how to prevent birds from eating all his veg. Black thread was her secret weapon. I imagine it works equally well with English sparrows as it did with Scottish ones! I hope so anyway.

Watched a Crash – Bang, Baku GP. Not driver errors this time, but tyre failures. More like Wacky Races than a GP!

Tomorrow morning Scamp is off to have coffee with June. I’m hoping to finish my epistle to Alex.